1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a pulsed alternator incorporating current waveform flexibility and a pulsed transformer. More specifically, the present device relates to a single phase, multipole alternator with inertial and electromagnetic energy storage through the initially injected current in the compensating winding.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a variety of applications, including thermonuclear fusion, space technology and certain military countermeasure techniques, there exists a need to provide a train of current pulses to a prescribed load. Preferably, these current pulses need to be of substantial magnitude. Furthermore, these current pulses must have a certain shape with respect to time and in some applications this shape must be variable from load to load and from pulse to pulse.
The development in current pulse technology has at times been hindered by limitations in the development of compatible systems hardware. For example, changes in current pulse shapes have generally been synthesized by electronic circuitry. The use of electronic circuitry, however, imposes limitations on the magnitude of the current pulse due to the inevitable heating of the electronic components of such a system. Rotating electrical apparatuses, therefore, have been limited in their maximum attainable current and/or do not possess the required wave shape flexibility. For example, an alternating current generator as used in grid power systems is limited in the maximum attainable current and power. To address this limitation, the compensated pulsed alternator or compulsator as seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,200,831-Weldon, et al. was developed. It would be desirable that this alternator have greater waveform flexibility.
Additional limitations addressed by the present invention as a result of incorporating wave shape flexibility include switching. As pulsed alternator applications have necessitated increasingly higher current levels, a major problem that has arisen is the development and design of closing switches to initiate precisely timed current pulse. For high current pulses, these switches tend to be quite large, and in certain cases, require extensive development.
Prior attempts to overcome this problem have employed high voltage, low current generators, stepping up the current of the generator with a pulse transformer, where the closing switch is positioned on the primary of the transformer. However, the use of such generators necessarily implies the undesired existence of an additional component in the system, the pulse transformer. Moreover, these approaches have not permitted output waveform flexibility since the shape of the pulse is predetermined by the variation in time of the generator primary pulse.